User talk:BeardyMike

Seven words and a contraction about Mike
He's a voiceover artist & music composer.

COI
Music on hold - I work for the UK's oldest Music on Hold provider, Sound Marketing. (any tips on who to edit/write the wiki page for Sound Marketing would be greatly appreciated.)

Speedy deletion nomination of Sound Marketing


A tag has been placed on Sound Marketing, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G11 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page seems to be unambiguous advertising which only promotes a company, group, product, service, person, or point of view and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become encyclopedic. Please read the guidelines on spam and FAQ/Organizations for more information.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the. &mdash; Ingenuity (talk &bull; contribs) 16:12, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Paid editing/conflict of interest
If you are editing in regards to a company you work for, you are likely engaging in paid editing, and certainly have a conflict of interest. While that is not forbidden, certain practices are. Primarily, as a paid or COI editor, you must follow our conflict of interest requirements and avoid directly editing or creating mainspace articles for paid subjects. Rather, for creation of a new article, you must create a draft and request review by articles for creation, so that an editor without a conflict of interest can review it. Please ensure that you do not again attempt to directly create this article in mainspace. In addition to this, please note that articles must only neutrally summarize material confirmed by reliable and independent published sources, and must not utilize personal knowledge or in any way "talk up" or otherwise promote the subject. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:26, 5 October 2022 (UTC)


 * @Seraphimblade, Thanks for checking in on this.
 * I really do think this page belongs on Wikipedia, as Sound Marketing is the oldest Music On Hold production house in the UK.
 * I took great effort to make sure the text was written in a neutral way, and that all information was backed with citations or corroborating images. I also made sure that my own page included a disclosure that I work for the company, and this was done before I start making the sound marketing page. I'd like to know which parts of the text were concerning, so that I can take greater care if I try to write about it again.
 * You've asked me not to try and make this page again, so would you be willing to help me?
 * You are a neutral party without a conflict of interest, and I can see that you took part in Editor assistance program, so I think you'd be a great fit to help me. You were happy enough to delete the page, so maybe you'd be willing to help me make it better?
 * If you aren't willing to help me with this, can you let me know if my account is at risk if I create a draft?
 * I look forward to hearing from you, and thank you for your time.
 * BeardyMike (talk) 18:55, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry if I was unclear. There is no problem if you make a draft and request AfC review&mdash;that's what you should be doing. Just don't create it direct in mainspace again. And the reason for those COI rules is exactly as here&mdash;it is extremely difficult to write neutrally about something you are close to and have a substantial interest in. (That's not unique to you; that would be true of anyone, certainly me included.) To start with, it's not too bad, Sound Marketing is a provider of Music on hold (though it should be "music on hold"&mdash;I'm really not sure why, but I have seen time and again that inappropriately capitalized words tend to be very common in promotional articles), but that's a relatively neutral description. From there, though, we see more of the issues, such as the section heading Quick History (just "history" is fine; no need for the adjectives), Sound Marketing provides a range of services including Music on hold, Scriptwriting, Audio Production, Voice-over, and Audio Branding Consulting. ("look at our stuff", not confirmed by any independent sources, and a bunch of inappropriate capitalization again), In 2020, Sound Marketing began research and development of a Music on hold Streaming platform. This would allow customers to use Music on hold without needing traditional audio players to be connected to their PBX/IPBX, and also without the need for Telephone companies to manually upload and manage files. (unless reliable and independent sources have confirmed this as somehow significant, this is "about us" stuff that should be omitted), Through the Audio Marketing Association, On Hold Messaging Association, and the Experience Marketing Association, Sound Marketing has received several awards ranging from "customer service excellence" to "best out-take". (while I omitted them here, the sentence contained several external links; do not use external links in article text. Also, unless these awards have been noted by reliable and independent sources as particularly significant, they're just awardspam and should be omitted. Finally, "several" is not a number; be specific.), In 2022, Sound Marketing gained the "we invest in people" accreditation. (see previous&mdash;first off, from whom, and of course, what reliable and independent sources confirm that it's significant?), and similarly, the "Charity work" bit is feel-good puffery unless reliable and independent sources noted it as particularly significant. Also, with things like that, remember that the reader doesn't have your context&mdash;the photo there is captioned Mike and Darren renovating one of the rooms at the Canberra Centre in Melksham. Who on Earth are "Mike" and "Darren"? An appropriate caption might be "Two employees work on...". The only source cited is the company's own website, and while that may be used for very simple facts such as where the company is located or who its CEO is, it should not be used very much. Rather, articles should be based upon sources which are both reliable and independent. To demonstrate notability, it is necessary that a substantial quantity of reliable and independent source material exists, which directly covers the article subject to a reasonably substantial depth. If such material doesn't exist about this company (and for the vast majority of companies, it doesn't), then this company is not a suitable subject for an article at all. If it does, the article should be primarily based upon such independent material, not what the company writes about itself. An article is not a "profile" or an "About Us" page. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:18, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Seraphimblade
 * Thanks for your feedback, I've found it immensely helpful from an editorial perspective.
 * In preparation for a draft page, I'll collect external links from our local news outlets and make some better image captions. I'm confident I can find sources that will meet your standards for reliability and impartiality.
 * Once I'm ready to start a draft page, do you have any further recommendations, or articles/guides that I can dig into?
 * Thanks in advance.
 * BeardyMike (talk) 07:51, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I already mentioned above the guidance on writing with a conflict of interest, and of course the general guidelines on neutrality and notability above, but will link here again to them as I think they may be quite helpful. Also, there's some general introductory guidance on writing one's first article. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:17, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Seraphimblade
 * Thanks again.
 * BeardyMike (talk) 09:24, 6 October 2022 (UTC)